Thermal inkjet printers utilize print cartridges having printheads for directing ink droplets onto a medium, such as paper, in patterns corresponding to the indicia to be printed on the paper. In general, ink is directed from a reservoir via flow paths to bubble chambers and associated orifices or nozzles for release onto the paper. Heaters are provided adjacent the nozzles for heating ink supplied to the nozzles to vaporize a component in the ink in order to propel droplets of ink through the nozzle holes to provide a dot of ink on the paper. During a printing operation the print head is moved relative to the paper and ink droplets are released in patterns corresponding to the indicia to be printed by electronically controlling the heaters to selectively operate only the heaters corresponding to nozzles through which ink is to be ejected for a given position of the printhead relative to the paper.
Printheads typically include a nozzle plate attached, as by adhesive, to a silicon chip containing the heating elements. The flowpaths, bubble chambers and nozzles are typically provided by laser ablating the nozzle plate material to provide such structure. As will be appreciated, the precision and uniformity of such features significantly affect the quality of printing. Thus, for example, if the walls which surround the nozzles and define the bubble chambers do not smoothly interface the silicon chip, leakage can result and adversely affect print quality. Conventional methods for manufacturing nozzle plates often fail to provide the desired precision and uniformity of the flow features thus adversely affecting the yield of usable nozzle plates and/or the performance of the printer.
Accordingly it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved method for the manufacture of inkjet printheads.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a method of the character described which enables the production of printheads having greater reliability and performance characteristics as compared to printheads provided using conventional techniques.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a method for manufacturing a printhead having an improved nozzle and heater array.
An additional object of the present invention is to provide a method of the character described which avoids many of the disadvantages of conventional methods.